General Election 2015 - The Implications

Employment law is much like fashion with trends we have been
glad to see the back of, reappearing with successive governments.
This is particularly relevant to the unfair dismissal qualifying
period of service. New Labour reduced the qualifying period from
two years to one and then the pendulum swung back again under the
Coalition government when we saw an increase to a two year
qualifying period. This will remain the same under a Conservative
majority.

If the pre-election pollsters were to be believed, then anything
could have happened and a hung Parliament looked likely. That
was not to be and a surprise Conservative victory, albeit with a
slim majority, means that there are likely to be fairly robust
employment policies, the watchword being 'Deregulation'.

Some changes in this direction were afoot before the election,
with the Small Business Enterprise and Employment Act 2015 (SBEEA)
and the Deregulation Act 2015 receiving Royal assent on 26 March
2015. The SBEEA covers a whole raft of legislative reforms
with the intention of reducing regulations which stymie the ability
for small businesses to innovate and grow.

The employment provisions of the SBEEA provide among other
things, financial penalties for unpaid tribunal awards and
settlements, restrictions on exclusivity in zero hours' contracts,
an extension to the financial penalty for failure to pay the
national minimum wage, and power to restrict the number of times
that parties can request postponements in employment tribunal
hearings.

We shall have to see if David Cameron's pre-election
blandishments come to pass. Below are just some of the
promises the Conservative party made in its manifesto.

Zero hours'
contracts

The Conservatives have promised to remove exclusivity in zero
hours' contracts. SBEEA will insert a new Section 27A into
the Employment Rights Act 1996 (which governs a large part of UK
employment law) rendering void, any clause in a zero hours'
contract which purports to prevent a worker from working for
another employer, or doing so without the employer's consent.

Exclusivity has been heavily criticised as giving rise to abuse,
since a worker might be held in contractual slavery, given no work
by the principal employer, but unable to seek work elsewhere. This
is indeed a welcome move.

The Human Rights
Act

Less welcome in some quarters, is the indication that the
Government will look to replace the Human Rights Act with a British
'Bill of Rights' with a nod to the USA. On the face of it,
this might be seen as a radical move, and we are yet to see how the
legislature will get around the European Convention on Human Rights
which requires Member States to implement basic tenets of human
rights law into domestic legislation. Some have regarded the
Human Rights Act as a 'Criminal's Charter' and others, as causative
of risk aversion among public authorities. It is not clear
how a new Bill of Rights might operate in practice, the scope of
the constitutional rights it might encompass, or how it might apply
to Scotland. Watch this space.

National Minimum wage
and Living wage

The Conservative manifesto makes a broad statement that it will
increase the National minimum Wage from £6.50 to £6.70 from 1
October 2015 and that it is 'on course' for an £8.00 minimum wage
by the end of the decade. The manifesto supports the
so-called 'living wage' and continues to encourage businesses and
other organisations to pay it whenever they can afford it.

Increasing the pre-tax personal allowance to £12,500 will be a
welcome measure to anyone earning less than that amount. This
means that by the end of 2020 people who work 38 hours a week on
the increased national minimum wage, will no longer pay any income
tax at all. The Government pledges to introduce legislation
to increase the personal allowance automatically in line with the
prevailing national minimum wage.

Work and
family

The manifesto outlines the goal of welfare reform to 'reward
hard work' and 'protect the vulnerable'. According to its
manifesto, the Government will support the population, 'whether we
choose to go out to work or stay at home to raise children'.
Some may find this a restrictive model but it appears that
the rewards are there for those who are able to work. The
headline promise is to introduce tax-free childcare to help parents
return to work, and to give working parents of three and four year
olds, 30 hours of free childcare a week. This is likely to
take effect from 2017 and would result in more than 600,000 extra
15-hour free childcare places every year.

The government makes a promise to reduce what it calls the
disability employment gap, helping those will a long-term yet
treatable condition back to work and providing support for mental
health. The Conservative party will also aim to promote full
gender equality by requiring companies with more than 250 employees
to publish pay differences between male and female employees.
Public sector duties are already ahead of the private sector in
this regard.

Trade Unions and
industrial action

In a nod to Thatcherite sentiments, the Conservative party has
indicated that it will make strike action more difficult,
introducing a tougher threshold for strike action in key services
such as health, transport, fire and education which some may argue
is no bad thing. New laws would require a minimum turnout of
40% of all those entitled to take part in strike ballots. The
government will also abolish what it describes as 'nonsensical
restrictions' which ban employers from using agency workers to
cover striking employees.

Migrant
workers

One of the more meaningful areas of development is the effort
made to eradicate exploitation of migrant workers. The Modern
Slavery Act 2015 received Royal assent on 26 March 2015. This
will enable government agencies to have wider powers to tackle
unlawful trafficking, and will introduce a duty on commercial
organisations to prepare a slavery and human trafficking statement.
Businesses will have to make a commitment to ensure that
their supply chains are 'slavery-free'. This comes after high
profile cases reaching Supreme Court level where the question of
the treatment of vulnerable workers has been considered.

What is not clear from the Conservative manifesto is the
Government's intention with regard to access to justice. We
have seen a drastic reduction in the number of employment tribunal
claims coming through the Employment Tribunal system. This
may be the result of a combination of factors, a reduction in the
numbers of public sector equal pay claims, employment tribunal
fees, but also ACAS early conciliation which can result in
settlements before a case reaches the point of no return.

These are challenging times for employers and employees alike as
we emerge from recession. We have certainly experienced
challenges from a professional perspective as we adapt to the
changing employment law landscape. Whatever does come to pass
in the next five years, we will continue to encourage proper
scrutiny of rights and liabilities by our law makers, and to give
clear and sensible advice to our clients.